CHAPTER XXXVIII
Mlle. Marie hovered around her mistress with many delicate attentions after her master had departed, but her ministrations were not crowned with much success. Laurel lay still and pale but consumed by an agony of impatience, under the dabs of eau de Cologne that the maid bestowed on her cheeks and forehead. She longed to be alone to weep and wail aloud in her despair, but she could not send the maid away. She knew that she had to dress for dinner in a little while, and as Mrs. Le Roy would be down to dinner for the first time that day, her absence would be felt as a great disappointment. She would not give up. She would keep up the farce to the last moment.
She lay there, outwardly still and calm, but consumed by burning suspense and unrest, her hearing strained to its utmost, as if waiting to hear her accuser's voice. She wondered if Ross Powell would follow her, and denounce her. Surely he knew her secret now. She could hide it from him no longer. In a little while, he must know all.
Once, a wild impulse of flight came over her. How could she stay and meet her husband's scorn when he learned the truth? He worshiped her now as his ideal of womanhood. What would he say when he knew her as she was, weak and willful, a girl who had risked everything for the sake of love? Would he hate her for her sin? That would be more bitter than death. Perhaps it was better to go away now before he knew her at her worst before he hated her for deceiving him.
If she had guessed what lay before her, she would have gone—she would have fled silently from Eden, bearing with her for the light of her darkened future the memory of his love alone—his smiles, his caresses, his tender words—but the madness of her love made her stay.
"I cannot go. All is not lost yet," she said, faintly, yet hopefully, to her foreboding heart. "He will forgive me, perhaps, for our love's sake."
She knew that there could be no limit to her love and forgiveness for her husband if he had wronged her. Was it strange that she should judge him by herself? She was very young and very ignorant. She did not know how truthfully the poet had written:
"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,
'Tis woman's whole existence."
When she was dressed for dinner, St. Leon came to take her down. There was a subdued happiness and excitement shining on his handsome face; she wondered at it, but she did not ask him why.
She was dressed much as she had been on the night when he first told her that he loved her. She wore white, with scarlet, jacqueminot roses. She had chosen the costume purposely, thinking he would be softened at the memories it recalled.
He took his fair young wife into his arms, and kissed her many times; he smoothed the waving, golden tresses with loving hands, telling her how dearly he loved her—how happy she made him. Then, even while she clung to him, he released her gently from his embrace, not knowing it was the last—not dreaming of the years to come when his arms would ache in vain to clasp her.
"My mother is waiting for you in the drawing room," he said. "There is someone with her—a visitor. Can you guess whom, darling?"
She gave a terrible start—a smothered cry—and clung to his arm with both small, white hands.
"My dear, how nervous you are!" he said. "One would think you were frightened. It is your old rival, Maud Merivale. Think of her insufferable impertinence in coming here after that night last summer! But courage, love, she will only be consumed with envy when she sees how much lovelier you have grown since you became my wife."
She tried to murmur some careless reply, but her heart leaped with fear. Another enemy! Too surely the coils of fate were closing around her!
They went down the broad staircase, along the lighted hall, and so into the brilliant drawing room, the handsome man with the lovely girl borne proudly on his arm. She looked up and saw Mrs. Le Roy smiling at her, Mrs. Merivale rustling toward her in "gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls," and, beyond her, two others—a man and a woman—both strangers. They were rising eagerly, too, coming toward her with smiles and outstretched hands. A dim perception flashed over Laurel; her heart felt like a stone in her breast.
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